Reviews

Meteos

This fairly simple gameplay mechanic is explored in the game's various modes. Meteos' story mode is dubbed "Star Trip," where you travel from planet to planet, clearing stages until you clear the final planet and save the galaxy. There are several different branching paths in this mode, each with its own ending. Time War mode allows you to see how many points you can score within two or five minutes or time you on how long it takes to clear with 100 or 1000 Meteos.

The two more basic modes are Simple, which allows you to play a quick game that you define the rules for (number of lives, time limit, difficulty, etc.) and Deluge, which is a "play until you die" affair. No matter which modes you play the most, you'll want to play a lot as the game keeps track of how many of each type of Meteo you destroy. It turns out that the destroyed Meteos are used as currency in the Fusion mode, where you can spend the blocks to purchase new planets to play on, power-ups, and more.

Are You Up To It?

Be warned, however, you're in for a challenge with Meteos. The matches here are short and sweet, usually under five minutes. The difficulty ramps up pretty quickly, and soon Meteos blocks will be raining down on you faster than you can keep track. This might frustrate some, but I welcomed the challenge. In fact, when the game began getting tough, it reminded me of Nintendo's Tetris Attack (perhaps the finest puzzle game ever made) -- it's not just a matter of finding the proper blocks to place together, you also need to do it fast. It's all about overwhelming you opponent as quickly as possible.

Of course, your opponent won't always be the computer. Like any good puzzle game, there's a multiplayer mode in Meteos. Up to four people can compete at once, either on teams or as individuals. As in Simple mode, you can fully customize the rules of the matches. Thanks to DS Download Play, you can even have four people playing with just one cartridge.

Broken?

Meteos' biggest flaw stems from the stylus driven control scheme. Although using the stylus to move blocks is an ideal way to do things, it also opens up an exploit that cheap players can take advantage of. Since it's so easy to move blocks with the stylus and you're also allowed to move blocks to where they don't form matches (unlike the similarly controlled Zoo Keeper), it's possible to quickly (and randomly) scribble all over the screen, which will undoubtedly set off multiple rockets. This flaw in the game design will save your bacon on occasion (I know it helped me clear more than one stage), but it doesn't work for too long. Eventually, you'll end up with too many Meteos on the screen for this haphazard method of playing to do any good. Normally, a situation like this might render a game busted, but given its limited use, I'd say that this is an interesting last ditch effort and nothing more.

Granted there's not a lot of competition, but Meteos is definitely the best puzzle game on the DS. Every time I play it, I find something new to appreciate and it makes me want to play more. And for the record, I like it more than Lumines -- make of that what you will. Now seriously, Nintendo, let's see some Tetris Attack action on the DS. Don't make me beg.